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Toyota Builds a Patent Thicket For Hybrid Cars

Posted by kdawson on from the stop-pay-toll dept.

Lorien_the_first_one sends along a WSJ piece reporting on how Toyota is hoping to benefit from new Obama Administration regulations for automobiles here in the US. "Since it started developing the gas-electric Prius more than a decade ago, Toyota has kept its attorneys just as busy as its engineers, meticulously filing for patents on more than 2,000 systems and components for its best-selling hybrid. Its third-generation Prius, which hit showrooms in May, accounts for about half of those patents alone. Toyota's goal: to make it difficult for other auto makers to develop their own hybrids without seeking licensing from Toyota, as Ford Motor Co. already did to make its Escape hybrid and Nissan Motor Co. has for its Altima hybrid."

10 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. Kudos to them by Anonymous+Cowdog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is exactly what patents *should* be used for: secure rewards for innovators who take the risk of bringing out a future-leading product.

    The US auto companies who had a product vision apparently inspired by Country & Western music unfortunately passed on the opportunity, and now they'll have to pay.

    1. Re:Kudos to them by beckett · · Score: 5, Insightful

      i agree that American Auto should suck it. The timing around the toyota patents sucks though.

      Feet dragging patents may be great for the bottom line and act as some sort of poetic justice, but the patents retard widespread deployment of hybrid vehicles and chokes further development of the technology. by the time some patents would expire (e.g. 20 years), our window to affect climate change may have past.

      at least Toyota banks mad cash on their prius in the mean time.

    2. Re:Kudos to them by fishbowl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "This is exactly what patents *should* be used for: secure rewards for innovators who take the risk of bringing out a future-leading product."

      Using them as a weapon against your competition who *laughed at you* all the way into *bankruptcy* is just a bonus, a coup de grace.

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      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  2. Maybe this is the good kind of patent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If patents are supposedly to encourage new technological developments, without knowing the details, it sounds like this might actually be a responsible use. After all, it gives Toyota a financial incentive to come up with more efficient cars. And the competition is actually licensing it. Unlike in the farmaceutical industry, where companies patent publicly-funded findings from NIH research so that they can be the only ones profiting from it. Or software, where people patent stuff to be able to sue their competitors out of a product space.

  3. Toyota's goal: to protect it's hard work... by Maxwell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So it's a fact that Toyota's goal is to prevent any one else from making hybrids without licensing?

    Or maybe their goal is to protect their hard earned IP that they spent ten years working on while the rest of the world laughed at them?

    Good work , Toyota. you deserve those patents.

    1. Re:Toyota's goal: to protect it's hard work... by fermion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly, those that have worked on alternatively powered cars have a portfolio that will allow them to produce such cars. Those who have not are going to be left behind. This is right and proper. The companies include GM and Chrysler. Though it was probably ok to bail out these companies to assist semi-skilled semi-educated employees who would have otherwise been left with little hope of gainful employment, we do have to admit that the technical and management expertise seems so antiquated that there seems little hope that they will be able to compete. And don't complain about the expensive pay to workers. That is why they existed, to allow the semi-skilled high school graduate to enter the middle class. It did not prevent them from better funding appropriate research. A year ago the volt would have been a lifesaver. Now, who is going to buy a car from a company that may not be able to back it up?

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      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  4. Ford does not license Hybrid tech from Toyota by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is a common misconception, but Ford does not license their hybrid technology from Toyota. Related post at Autoblog where they explain: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/07/05/editorial-attention-i-wall-street-journal-i-ford-does-b-n/

  5. Re:Obvious... by Pyrion · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nope, they developed their own system, and found it to be functionally similar to Toyota's, so rather than embroil themselves in lawsuits with Toyota, they cross-licensed.

    Disclaimer: I own an Escape Hybrid.

    --
    "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell.
  6. Re:Prior art? by AaronW · · Score: 5, Informative

    You have the series and parallel confused. A series car typically has the electric motor inline with the engine to provide boost. This is how the original Honda Insight and hybrid Civic work. A parallel hybrid like Toyota's Prius and the Ford Escape can run on any combination of electric and gasoline. It uses a planetary gear assembly with the gasoline engine driving the planets. The sun gear goes to a generator/alternator (that can also be a motor) and the outer ring goes to the wheels and another electric motor. The CVT is basically just how it shunts power between the two motors. Mechanically it's fairly simple. If the gasoline engine dies it can use the electric motors to power itself. If an electric motor dies the car won't move.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive

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  7. US auto makers blew it by mid 2001 by Locutus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They had been working half-assed on hybrids since 1993 and were more than happy to give all that up to take cash from the US government to show million dollar hydrogen prototype cars and trucks. Can you say dumb? Unfortunately, the US government is allowing them to continue operating and sticking US citizens with the bill. IMO, any of those three which couldn't continue operating should have been parted out and the remains crushed like GM did with the EV1. What a waste of money and it is their own fault Toyota is going to stomp on them with patent licensing costs as they should. After all, Toyota was the one who had to endure about 8 years of bashing by the US press and US auto makers for doing hybrid systems. They even had to endure a law suite by Mobile/Texaco when Toyota and Panasonic built prismatic NiMH batteries the oil company said were outside of the NiMH patent licenses which Mobile/Texaco purchased from GM. The large NiMH batteries used in the Rav4 EV had to be discontinued but at a cost of millions of dollars, they were allowed to continue making and using the prismatic design used in the Prius battery packs. Toyota deserves to be rewarded for what they've done with and for hybrid system designs.
     

    LoB
     

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    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus